Microsoft India Unveils End-to-End Cloud Services Portfolio
IT News Online Staff
2010-03-08
Microsoft India has unveiled its end-to-end offering for customers, partners and developers in India. The company also announced the commercial availability of the Windows Azure Platform, an Internet-scale cloud services platform hosted in Microsoft's data centers.
Microsoft said it is the only company today that is ready to make customers' journey to the cloud real with enterprise-class cloud-based offerings across all three service layers in the cloud including infrastructure, platform and software applications.
Microsoft enables cloud computing across the three service layers:
SaaS: Software-as-a-service
Microsoft offerings: Microsoft Online Services, Office Web Apps, Microsoft Hosted Dynamics
PaaS: Platform-as-a-service
Microsoft offerings: Windows Azure Platform (Windows Azure, SQL Azure; AppFabric)
IaaS: Infrastructure-as-a-service
Microsoft offerings: Windows Server, SystemCenter, Dynamic Data Center Toolkit
Microsoft said today's move will enable companies in India to strengthen their IT roadmap by including the cloud as a core component of their strategy to drive higher productivity and efficiencies.
"Microsoft has always led the industry in the software space. With businesses looking to the cloud to bring higher efficiencies, it is natural for us to extend our strength and expertise of the past 15 years in the cloud space and offer the value of our experience to customers," said Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, Microsoft India.
Microsoft said it is making the Windows Azure Platform available as a service. Over the last two years the company has launched several products and solutions in India across other layers as part of its Cloud Strategy for Enterprises. These include hosted Dynamics, Office Web Apps, Microsoft Online Services [comprising Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online, and Office Live meeting], Windows Server, SystemCenter and the Dynamic Data Center Toolkit.
"This completes our cloud stack," said Anandan. "All of our popular products are already cloud-ready, and we have a clear future roadmap to provide anytime, anywhere access across diverse devices spanning computer, mobile and Internet. We are ready today to help customers leverage the benefits of cloud services."
The Windows Azure Platform provides a range of functionality to build applications in a secure, interoperable and cost effective manner, spanning scenarios from consumer Web to enterprise. Microsoft said its ecosystem of customers, partners and developers in India has demonstrated overwhelming enthusiasm for the platform. More than 50 partners including HCL Technologies, Wings Info, Cerebrate and CDC Software are developing commercial applications and solutions on Windows Azure platform. Today, customers have access to over 3000 applications on Azure platform, fifty of them for various vertical scenarios including healthcare, Finance and Accounting, etc.
"We strongly believe Indian enterprises are ready for the Cloud, and we are excited about the opportunity that Windows Azure platform brings to companies like us. We will be able to rapidly deliver cloud-based applications that work seamlessly with the rest of the Enterprise infrastructure, helped along by Microsoft's holistic cloud strategy," said G. H. Rao, Corporate VP and Head, Engineering and R&D Services, HCL Technologies.
Partner solutions developed on Windows Azure Platform:
WingsInfo - SaaS-based Accounting Package and Supply chain management system for SMB customers on Azure
CDC Software - Complaint Management and Enterprise Feedback Management System
Cerebrate - Cloud storage Studio (CSS) is a Windows (WPF) based client for Windows Azure Storage that helps users manage tables, queues and blob containers.
HCL - Management application developed on Windows Azure to help customers manage data on the cloud
"SMBs in India are looking for low-cost solutions without the hassle of running an in-house infrastructure. Windows Azure is not only a reliable and scalable platform for customers to access online services, but also enables us to create feature-rich applications for different devices and a large set of users without worrying about IT infrastructure," said Ajay Gandhi, MD Wings Infonet Ltd.
Microsoft said cost efficiencies are being seen as one of the key benefits of the cloud computing paradigm. The company's estimates reveal that with the Windows Azure Platform, customers and partners can realize a reduction in total cost of operations of key workloads by up to 30% to 40% over a three-year period.
"The ease of application development including the advantage of interoperability with other platforms and programming languages gives us a plethora of opportunities to deploy applications for a large user set. Further, the customers are able to store the data on Azure and manage it with ease and convenience that in turn significantly reduces IT costs for them. We see immense potential for Azure and cloud based services among Indian enterprises in the coming months," said Gaurav Mantri, Founder CEO of Cerebrata Software Pvt. Ltd.
"The security and reliability offered by Windows Azure is expected to attract a large customer base on the cloud which we believe should increase the adoption of the services model for critical sectors such as banking and government," said Nagaraja Prakasam, Managing Director, South and Southeast Asia, CDC Software.
"No other company matches the flexibility and the power of choice that Microsoft provides to customers - to select how they deploy software either on premise, in the cloud, or a combination of both, and, of course, the ability to access technology across multiple screens - viz the phone, PC and Internet. We believe that Microsoft's initiative and leadership in cloud services will be beneficial to customers, partners and developers as we architect our solutions to optimize for cloud and on-premises solutions," said Anandan.
|
